fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2435 ]

[ SECRET POST #2435 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2435 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 049 secrets from Secret Submission Post #348.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OC (assuming you don't mean Orange County) has never been anything other than a quick way of saying "my self-insert Mary Sue".

So EVERY OC since the beginning of fandom has only EVER been a "self insert Mary Sue"

Sorry but that statement is stupid. I can understand get behind "I don't read fics with OCs because I'm here for the canon characters" because you like what you like that that's cool but..."they are ALWAYS this, no exceptions" is narrow-minded and wrong.

Original Character means character that was created by the author and does not exist in canon. That's it. No more , no less.

Thank you.

Write about characters you like? Cool. Write them in all sorts of situations AUs or crossovers. Sure why not?

But heaven help you if you dare include a character made by you because creating a character yourself is horrible terrible writing and should just not be written. Cause like seriously Ew who does that?

...Like geez...I get that some people are young and create bad characters...but why should that be a reason that NO ONE can do it or it's bad? Let's just not let anyone create anything new because it might be bad. Why should it be discouraged all together because of some bad examples.

Here's a thought why don't we teach people to create characters WELL rather than saying they should just avoid it.

You like what you like....but don't be an asshole about it for crying out loud.

it's weird how fandom is so eager to point to things and say they're bad writing
when to most people "fanfiction" means bad writing

omfg you said it so well. It's like some people think you can only express your interest in something within a restricted set of ways.

And I find it weird that some see a handful of bad examples and decide to think it's all like that, when there's a metric fuckton of bad fanfiction that even though it's all canon characters, they are characterized so terribly as to be unrecognizable.

I maintain that a good writer can pull off a good OC fic, while a bad writer wouldn't be able to do neither that nor canon character fic correctly.

Thank you

I have said before "There is as much OOC Canon fic as bad OC fic. But with the canon fic people simply realize that the author must not be skilled. with fanfiction, they blame the foreign element the OC. There are many stories where the OC is bad so people seeem to decide it's always bad. "

On one hand they may have a point. Many fanfics are written by young teenagers so they have a poor grasp on characterization and character creation.

There are plenty of Possession Sues, canon characters turned into a Mary Sue by the author.

OC's shouldn't be considered bad writing or should be avoided because of this. Really people need to accept that there's going to be a lot of poor quality fanfiction because many fanfic writers are young. They don't have to read it and they don't have to like it, but just realize that it's going to happen.

A more constructive way to handle this is to try and educate people on how to write well.

"I maintain that a good writer can pull off a good OC fic, while a bad writer wouldn't be able to do neither that nor canon character fic correctly."

That's true. That's why many Mary Sue / bad OC fics have OOC canons. the existence of the OC didn't make them that way. They would have been that way no matter what because the writer is unskilled.

Kind of like how "fanfiction" has never been anything other than a quick way of saying "I can't actually write."

OKAY we get it you don't like fanfiction. You've mentioned it at LEAST 3 different times in this thread. (why are you in a fandom space then...?)

Can you give it a rest? As far as I'm concerned it's a hobby. It doesn't mean you're especially bad or good. It depends on the effort you put in. Me? I don't care if a work is just a fun fic, or an original piece , I put a bunch of effort and work in to try and get the best outcome out.

It's the same with OCs. You get what you put into it. You reap what you sow ,yada yada. If you spend a whole day or more of work developing your OC as a character, and you start your story by putting the canons first and remembering that your OC is a guest, than hey that's a great fic that just HAPPENS to have an OC in it. If you start writing a story where your OC bursts in the front door and wraps the narrative around their pinky finger the you'll get a 'stereotypical mary sue fic'.

There have been amazing well written fanfictions. And poorly written "original" novels by writers with the mentality of a 13 year old "suethor" (like Stephanie Meyer and Christopher Paolini).

AYRT

Honestly, it's all been hyperbole. I don't dislike fanfiction as a whole, but a lot of people have the attitude that fanfiction is universally bad -- just like people have the attitude that OCs are universally bad. If you're going to sit there and say that the presence of an OC automatically makes a story "bad," then you need to acquiesce when someone says that all fanfiction is bad. Absolutism is stupid.

On another note, there are a lot of people who enjoy and are active in fandom without reading or writing fanfiction, so I don't think it would be so strange for someone who hates fanfiction to be in a fandom space.

Oh. Well then I apologize.

and yeah I agree with that.

I apologize for my comment that is true thank you for pointing that out.

Hyperbole fail. You just sounded like you were trying to troll.

That's because anytime anyone here expresses an unpopular opinion, uses sarcasm, or, yes, uses hyperbole, people think that they're trolling.

It's more that bad trolls usually use hyperbole while expressing unpopular opinions to get the easily trolled riled up. Only a skilled master of sarcasm and hyperbole will not be mistaken for a bad troll in a place like this where bad trolls are abundant.

A lot of people start writing with OC/self insert because that is what they know and that is the easiest to write, so it is the most common fic. As their style matures, they shift to a more objective focal point.

OC =/= bad writing. OCs are the easiest focal to start with for a lot of people, and some may stick with it if it's enjoyable for them. That is all.

Dude, I don't know what fandoms you're in, but it's really hard to write an engaging story (that's not ship-focused) without having non-canon characters. There just aren't that many canons that have an entire world worth of canon (LOTR being one exception) and so unless you're writing about a post-apocalypse scenario where only the canon characters survived, you kind of need other people in your story.

da

this is the first time I've heard such an argument

could you give me examples of the works/canons/universes that don't lend themselves well to sticking only to canon characters only?

Case of the week / mystery type fics for one. Also OCs are useful for random extras. Even if you only give them a name and a vague description that's still technically an OC.

Superhero fics
Hospital dramas
highschool dramas

Sticking to the canons is nice for writing fics that are very limited to say a relationship or something but if you want to write say a Harry Potter fic that continues where the Epilogue left off...between other students, new teachers and the like DAYUM that's a lot of OCs you'll need.

Usually with continuations if you want them to feel natural you have to have mentions of people they interact with. OCs aren't just the mysterious angsty new character who takes hold of the plot. They can be just the pizza guy, the kid in math class that a canon is stuck tutoring etc. and those characters are most certainly needed to avoid creating a story that feels like it's taking place in a jar. To create a sense of the real world.

It really depends on the story you're trying to tell as well. Some story types do lend themselves to focusing on canons. and others require a few spaces to be filled.

Star Trek/other exploratory sci-fi (you need aliens and other people in the universe)

Medical dramas (unless you want your story to have no patients)

Sherlock/mysteries (need cases, don't you?)

There are a lot more, but unless you're sticking to a closed canon setting like a show/book set in a high school, it's hard to have characters who live only in each others' asses.

This, this, this, this.

It depends on the story you're writing and the canon you're writing in.

Lots of canon's have large supporting casts and lots of fanfictions have a really narrow focus that only require a few characters.

Also, background OCs don't usually count for conversations like this.

It depends on the story you're writing and the canon you're writing in.

Exactly my point. But then, that's why the blanket statement of "all OCs = bad" doesn't really work: it's a case by case basis.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2435 ]

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LOL

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man the fanfic writing community is such a strange place

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DA

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da

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